


Waking Hours

by Nevanna



Category: Jekyll (TV), The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 03:23:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1250932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As he tries to hold onto his sanity, Tom encounters a mysterious visitor who is madness personified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Hours

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on 2/6/12. It takes place during the third episode of _Jekyll_.
> 
> Special thanks to Valravnsown for being my first reader.

Tom Jackman is losing his mind.

Impossible figures dance at the edges of his vision, in the corners of mirrors. His reflection in a rain-spattered shop window seems to grin back at him, and he can’t quite bring himself to blame the lack of sleep.

For a moment, he glimpses another reflection, small and pale and bedraggled, standing beside his own, but when he whirls round, nobody is there.

He is too busy scanning the fog-shrouded streets for black vans to notice that the girl is still watching him through her mismatched eyes.

\--

At this hour, Tom is one of three or four people in the café. The lights are too bright, and the coffee tastes highly questionable (should he drink anything that someone else brings him?), but after draining half the cup, he can think in complete sentences again. He needs to stay awake, and he needs food, and a plan, in that order.

Miles away, with any luck, Claire and the boys are sleeping soundly. He wants very badly to phone and warn her that whoever targeted their children might try again, that she shouldn’t trust Peter, that she needs to be careful. On the other hand, the Klein and Utterson Institute could easily have tapped the phones, or else…

Tom doesn’t like to think about it, but if the woman who might be his mother has told the truth and his longtime friendship with Peter was founded on a lie, then anything and anybody else that he holds dear could also be part of the illusion. He has to consider all variables, but if it pursues that one for long enough, he really will go mad.

“You look like a friend of mine.”

He blinks. He could have sworn that the seat opposite him was empty a moment ago. The girl is wearing a dress of wildly clashing colors, her hair is a fiery cloud, and one of her eyes is a vibrant blue, the other a vivid green. She looks like the wild, untouchable party-goers who used to careen across the university campus in the small hours of the morning, their laughter audible through his window as he tried to finish a lab report. She smells the same, like sweet, sweaty, late nights.

This isn’t the first time that he’s been in the extraordinarily awkward position of meeting one of Hyde’s conquests face to face. “Believe me when I say that you’ve got the wrong man.” 

“You say.” She tears open a packet of strawberry jam. “You say that a lot.”

“You’re a bit younger than his usual type.” She barely looks old enough to buy a drink in the pubs that Hyde likes to frequent. “I would stay away from him if I were you.”

“I’m not as old as some of us, but I’m older than that. Older than all the world and the little fishes,” she adds. “We have fun together. More fun than I bet you’re having now.”

“He and I have wildly differing definitions of fun. His usually involve vandalism and broken bones.” And tossing lions over fences as if they were stuffed toys.

“He likes to break things. Break them and make the pictures into pieces, or maybe that’s backwards. My big brother would have liked him. My other other _other_ big brother, I mean. The one who walked into the sky.”

The waitress returns and sets down a plate heaped with eggs and toast, and walks away without another word. “That wasn’t very nice of her,” the girl says with a pout. “I was going to ask if she had anything with raspberry filling. Or a fizzy malted banana and daydream soda. And something for my doggie, too.”

“If you want, you can -“ Tom begins reflexively, then stops. “Of course. She can’t see you, can she?” It makes about as much sense as anything else that’s happened over the past few days.

“Most other people can’t, unless, they want to,” his companion replies. “Mostly they don’t.” She licks jam from her fingers. “He wants to. Our friend.”

“He’s not my friend,” Tom says firmly. 

“He could be,” she insists. “He told me about you. He had lots of names for you, but some of them smelled funny.” 

“I can only imagine.” Not that he needs to; he’s heard quite a few of them. “I suppose I really am seeing things. Your eyes just changed color.” Her blue eye has turned green, and vice versa. 

“Don’t yours?” she fires back.

“How do you…” The odd glow around her head fragments into what Tom swears are tiny, silvery fish. He shakes his head, and they vanish. Looking at her straight on has made his own eyes start to hurt again, his head start to spin. _No_. “I don’t know who you are or whether you’re real,” he says, “but when I told you to stay away, I meant it.”

“He won’t hurt me. You can see for yourself. Just close your eyes.”

“You’re not the only one I’m worried about.” Tom has grown accustomed to checking the lights and the nearest exits. He tries to take deep breaths, to slow the hammering of his heart, to _stay here, stay here, stay here_ … “If let him do what he wants, people could die.”

“Everything dies, silly little man. Big sister finds them: sooner, later, always. You can plan and control as much as you want and it won’t change that.” Her laughter is very bright and very cold, peels back the skin of their surroundings, and makes him want to scream and run and _disappear_. “Maybe you need to stop trying to put everything into little boxes and writing little black and white labels on them and pretending that you know which one is which.”

Tom’s vision clears. Electricity pulses beneath his skin and subsides. The mysterious girl has gone as if she was never there to begin with. He sinks back into his seat, ignoring his nearly untouched plate of food and the odd stares from all directions. Hyde has retreated for now, which is all that matters, but the lights overhead flicker once more, as if in warning.

\--

A new day creeps over the rooftops and alleys of London. Another night has passed, and Tom has managed to keep his alter ego from doing any more damage, for whatever it’s worth. _It will kill you_ , the woman who might be his mother said. _Everything dies_ , the girl with fiery hair and odd eyes told him, if that conversation even happened at all.

He will find the answers that he needs, and will find a way to tell Claire that he loves her, and hope that he can trust her. Tom may be losing his mind in more ways than one, but as long as he is awake, and still moving, that only means that he hasn’t lost yet.

It’s a long time before he outruns the gleaming laughter that follows him around every corner.


End file.
